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King v. Lessinger9/29/2005
ehalf of the client." (Punctuation and citation omitted.) Government v. All Cities Transfer Co., 176 Ga. App. 436, 438 (336 SE2d 341) (1985).
Significantly, however, this Court has held that an attorney cannot pursue a quantum meruit claim against co-counsel in order to obtain attorney fees; instead, the attorney is limited to bringing the claim against their mutual client. See Glover v. Maddox, 98 Ga. App. 548, 557 (1) (106 SE2d 288) (1958). It is true that the present case involves a dispute over attorney fees between discharged counsel and successor counsel, not between co-counsel. Nevertheless, we find the reasoning of Glover persuasive and equally applicable in this context. Accordingly, we hold that, absent agreement to the contrary, a discharged attorney cannot obtain a quantum meruit recovery from other counsel subsequently retained by a former client, since the legal services rendered by the discharged attorney were "to and for the benefit of their mutual client" and only benefitted the successor counsel indirectly. Id.
Although appellants characterize their claim for attorney fees against appellees as one for "equitable disgorgement," it is in essence a claim for recovery in quantum meruit. Therefore, based on the principles enunciated above, appellants were entitled to bring such a claim against the Slatterys, but not against appellees, the Slatterys' successor counsel.
Appellants have failed to identify any other equitable cause of action available to them under our case law that would allow them to pursue their attorney fees from appellees. Appellants do cite several of our cases for the proposition that when attorneys work together on the same case without an express agreement over how to divide the attorney fees, any one of them can bring suit against the others and demand an equal division of the fees. See Kilgore v. Sheetz, 268 Ga. App. 761, 767-768 (1) (603 SE2d 24) (2004); Nickerson v. Holloway, 220 Ga. App. 553, 553-554 (1) (469 SE2d 209) (1996); Glover v. Maddox, 98 Ga. App. at 557 (1). However, the cases cited by appellants are distinguishable from the present action.
All of the cited cases involved disputes over attorney fees in situations where the attorneys had agreed to work in conjunction with one another on the same case but failed to establish an agreement over how to divide up the fees. The attorneys in those cases were acting as "joint adventurers" in handling the litigation. Nickerson, 220 Ga. App. at 554 (1). In contrast, as noted above, appellants did not work jointly or in conjunction with appellees in a co-counsel relationship to represent the Slatterys. Rather, the complaint alleges that the Slatterys discharged appellants and retained appellees as new counsel, at which point appellants no longer pursued the case any further. Thus, unlike in cases where the feuding attorneys had cooperated with one another in a joint undertaking, the present action involves a situation where one counsel succeeded another in working on the litigation. Accordingly, appellants do not have a basis for asserting an equitable claim against appellees under the "equal division rule" set forth in the Kilgore, Nickerson, and Maddox line of cases.
Appellants suggest that the result we have reached will encourage attorneys to lure or "poach" other attorneys' clients late in the litigation in order to recover a full contingency fee after performing only a minimal amount of work on the matter. Several factors militate against such a consequence. First, we note that the successor attorney must bear the risk in such a case that professional and ethical guidelines may render his fee unreasonable and thus may "require reconsideration of the [contingency]
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